Southern Rail

Jim Dowd Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard]

My hon. Friend deserves particular credit for the assiduous nature of his campaign for improved compensation for Southern passengers. I am glad to hear that he welcomed last Friday’s announcement. I understand that the level of faults on the driver-only operation trains to Horsham are running at almost double what is usually expected on the route. GTR is looking into the matter further. I am hoping to hear more from it in due course, and I will write to him with the outcome of that investigation.

[Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

I started commuting—both regularly and frequently—from Forest Hill to London Bridge and Waterloo East in 1963. In all those 53 years, the service has never been as unreliable and as chaotic as it is today. I now no longer use Southern to go to London Bridge, as I use the overground service. Unfortunately, large parts of my constituency, and just about every other constituency of Members concerned about this matter, do not have that option. Many of my constituents blame the management for what is going on, and an equal number blame the unions. Another set blames Network Rail and the infrastructure. We have heard from the Minister today about track failures causing chaos on the Brighton line. When will he and the Government do something to reassure my constituents, and those of everybody in this Chamber, that the Government are actually trying to do the best they can for commuters, rather than leaving commuters to the fate of the most incompetent organisation in the entire UK rail industry?

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman has given new meaning to the description “delayed journey” and we are deeply grateful to him.

Govia Thameslink Rail Service

Jim Dowd Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[Tim Loughton]

I completely agree. I am sure all of us in the Chamber have similar stories and have had similar emails and letters. Gatwick airport is the gateway to the United Kingdom. Some 40 million people come to Gatwick airport currently, let alone if a second runway is positioned there. What an impression they get of the infrastructure in this country when they have to get on a train in those conditions!

I have with me many emails. One says:

“Yesterday I saw one unfortunate gentleman who became very poorly and distressed after having stood, squashed, for over an hour and a half in full city attire, an older American woman in tears and several hugely upset elderly people and little children who became panicked about the heat and crush.”

There are other people who do not get home until after 9.30 at night, having left the City at 5 o’clock. Someone missed his wedding anniversary. He ended his email to Southern by saying that

“frankly guys it’s not good enough.

Please, give up the franchise.

Please, don’t spend £6m on taxis for execs—please spend it on me.

Please, don’t keep blaming staff shortages—they are equally blaming you and it’s me (and my fellow commuters) sitting in the middle.

Please, remember—until you give up/lose the franchise—you are a TRANSPORT company. So please—transport people!”

It goes on and on. Another email says:

“At the end of the day it would seem to me that Southern and the RMT”—

the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers—

“are acting like two spoiled children. Both have their positions and both are refusing to move at all, neither gives a damn about customers. It is the customer that is suffering in all this—it would not be so bad if we had any choice about the train operator that we use (in which case Southern trains would be empty I’m sure)—the fact is Southern have a monopoly and we have no other options.”

Time and again, we are getting emails like that, with no sign of the situation getting any better at all.

[Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, although the current dispute has made matters markedly worse, in truth the reason why Southern should relinquish the franchise is that its performance has been lamentable over many years, not just recently?

[Tim Loughton]

Well, the franchise has not been going for that many years and of course we had all the problems supposedly attributable to London Bridge at the beginning of the year, when the situation was bad enough, but it has got hugely worse since then. I will come on to that in a moment—I know that many other hon. Members want to speak.

On Monday, to deal with the crisis, GTR introduced its emergency timetable. That came on the back of the increasing number of planned cancellations, presumably because it reduces the penalties that the company has to pay. It came on top of the loosening of the franchise agreement, which I read about in the newspaper. Hon. Members were given no notice by the Department for Transport or, indeed, the company itself. Given all the interest that had been shown by colleagues here today, one would at least have expected to have been forewarned about that by the Minister. That was, frankly, discourteous and disgraceful and has only compounded our anger with the way the whole dispute has been handled.

When the new emergency timetable came in, what was the result? Last night, I got the figures for the public performance measure for 12 July. With the emergency timetable and 341 planned cancellations—341 fewer trains running—the PPM was 77%; it was barely three quarters on the second day of the emergency timetable. The position was that 2,800 trains ran, 2,172 were more or less on time, 620 were late and 122 were cancelled or very late. The result of the emergency timetable is that there is less choice for customers and more overcrowding, but presumably fewer fines. Extraordinarily, Charles Horton, the chief executive, in his appearance before the Select Committee on Transport the other day, said:

“We expect to see crowding levels evening out because of more regular intervals between trains”

as a result of the emergency timetable.

What sort of weird logic is that? There will be the same number of passengers battling to get a train to or from work, but more inconvenience because of the timings and surely more overcrowding because there are fewer trains to convey them. The extraordinary complacency of that attitude is absolutely baffling.

Specific problems have been caused by the change in the timetable. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) will mention the suspension of the Lewes to Seaford line in other than peak times—there is a replacement bus service—which includes the cross-channel port of Newhaven, which does not now have a regular daytime train service. It includes one of my local schools. We actually had the platform extended because, with the number of girls from Davison High School in Worthing using that station to go to and from school, it had become dangerous. Now, the only train in the morning arrives at East Worthing station at 5.35 or 7.16, with no further trains getting there until 18:24, and there is a similar lack of trains going home. Therefore, a station that Southern rail expanded to cater for the increasing number of pupils using it cannot be used as a stop for those girls to go to and from school. The crisis that this is causing is absolutely crazy.

The company cancelled 341 trains as part of the emergency timetable. We are told in the briefing note from GTR:

“The number of trains cancelled in the revised timetable is 341 which is broadly similar to the number”

that were cancelled on an ad hoc basis to date.

That is fine: the company is just making it official that it is rubbish—that now it is part of the official timetable that it is officially very rubbish. It is extraordinary logic, and apparently the company has done that without even having to get the permission of the Department for Transport, or so the chief executive claimed at the Select Committee the other day. We would like to know from the Minister how this works. How is it allowed to do this and get away with it, and still have its franchise as the largest passenger conveyer in the country? What are we going to have next? Why does it not reduce the timetable to zero trains and then it would have 100% competence in completing its timetable? That is the logic of where this is going, such is the ridiculousness of the situation.

This is at the heart of the problem. I do not believe that there is sufficient deterrent or incentive on either side, for the management or the unions who are party to these problems, to find a resolution with any sense of urgency. All this time, it is the passengers—our constituents —who are suffering and losing out. We listened to Mick Cash from the RMT in front of the Select Committee going on about how, “We couldn’t possibly, for safety reasons, have driver-only operated trains,” despite the fact those already operate on 60% of Govia Thameslink services and 30% of trains on the whole of the network, and have done since 1985. It is not prepared to sit down and discuss that, and it is not prepared to acknowledge independent studies that have shown that there is not a major safety consideration.

Then we had the management of GTR saying, “We have tried to sit down with them but they are being unreasonable and they are all going off sick deliberately.” There may be some truth in that; they may be cancelling trains deliberately in order to worsen the situation. Frankly, my constituents do not care whose fault it is; they just wanted it sorted. There is, “He said this”, “She said that”, “He did this”, “They did that”—it is absolutely ridiculous. Somebody—frankly, it should be the Government—should get the two parties together and metaphorically if not physically bang some heads together and tell them to sort it or else.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

I will try not to use even those three minutes, Ms Ryan. I want to echo what others have said and to congratulate the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) not just on securing the debate, but on the passion and comprehensive nature of his arguments, reflecting the concerns of his constituents and everybody in this room.

The right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) made some points about the safety of trains without conductors. In the inner London part of the franchise, which GTR laughingly calls the metro zone, there are no conductors. If I thought for one moment that running driver-only trains was dangerous, I would be kicking up a fuss on behalf of my constituents who are expected to use trains without conductors. I do not believe that that issue is the key to the problem.

The difficulty is that Southern has provided lamentable services consistently throughout the time it has had the franchise. It worries me that the same company has the Southeastern franchise. The company will say that there is a Chinese wall between the franchises but I fear the contagion may spread. Just yesterday, one of my constituents said:

“On the new ‘emergency timetable’, peak time services, including the 802 from Anerley, have been cancelled meaning that passengers are forced to travel in overcrowded conditions on services that are often short formed and subject to delays and last minute cancellations. There is nothing particularly new here. Southern have always provided a sub-par service. This most recent disaster, however, seems to be a lot worse than the usual chaos.”

People have had to get used to “the usual chaos” when the service is provided by Southern.

I was standing on Forest Hill station the other day, fortunately waiting for an Overground service to Canada Water to come here. While I was there, the first train listed was the Southern service into London Bridge. As I stood there, it went from “on time”, to “delayed”, to “cancelled” within the space of four minutes. The short-running of trains is compounding the problem. People get on trains such as those on the Victoria to London Bridge line, which is supposed to go all the way, but they often get to Crystal Palace and are told that the train is terminating there, going both ways—to Victoria or to London Bridge.

The other day, a constituent told me that he had spent £700 on a season ticket for the service between Beckenham Junction and Victoria. That service has now been completely cancelled. I have been on to GTR to try to find out what the compensation arrangements are but, as the service no longer exists, my constituent believes that he now has little or no chance of being able to sustain his current job.

The situation is damaging lives. The sheer unpredictability of it all, from day to day, adds to people’s stress and the difficulties that they face. I know that the Minister has tried valiantly, over a long time, to deal with the situation, but if Southern is not up to running the service, somebody else has to.

Southeastern Train Services

Jim Dowd Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

It is a delight to serve under your sagacious direction, Mr Evans. I start with an apology for having to leave before the end of the debate because I have an appointment later this morning at King’s College hospital and it has already been postponed twice. You will understand, Mr Evans, that when one gets to my stage in life, one does not take liberties with one’s cardiologist. I look forward to reading what the Minister says and I congratulate her on taking the problems not just of Southeastern, but of Southern and the whole debacle of the London Bridge redevelopment seriously for quite a time.

In my constituency there are seven stations served by Southeastern, and a further six on the borders are used by large numbers of my constituents—all the stations are in zone 4—so it is obvious how critical the Southeastern service is to the life of my community, not just economically but socially. The cost of an annual rail ticket between Penge East and Victoria starts at £1,280, and a zones 1 to 4 annual travelcard costs £1,860. Southeastern even has the effrontery to offer a first-class season ticket between Penge East and Victoria for a staggering £1,920. That is spoiled only by the fact that none of the trains that run between Penge East and Victoria actually has first-class carriages. The ever-increasing cost of rail tickets is a different debate entirely, but it is surely not unreasonable for the constituents of all hon. Members present—I join in the general wailing and gnashing of teeth about the service provided by Southeastern—to expect a reasonable service, particularly in light of the amount of money that they pay.

I wish that Southeastern would put as much effort into running the trains on time as it does into providing excuses for why it does not. I complained on behalf of a constituent about the service from Charing Cross to Hayes and received the following reply:

“The causes have been primarily infrastructure-related, i.e. track, signal, and power supply failure, fatalities”—

I personally would not call that infrastructure—

“the collapse of the Dover Sea Wall”—

other hon. Members have mentioned that—

“landslips on the Bexleyheath and Hastings lines, fatalities at Hildenborough and Dover”—

I think those were probably passengers who gave up waiting for a train—

“a broken rail in the Crayford area and only this morning, a track…failure at Gravesend. While these may seem unrelated to the Hayes line the complexity of our network means that disruption on one line inevitably has a knock on impact on another.”

Well, I would have great difficulty explaining to people at Kent House and in Sydenham and Penge why the collapse of the Dover sea wall means that they cannot get into London. That is just ludicrous.

Recently, Southeastern even blamed service delays on “strong sunshine”—my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) has already mentioned this—making it difficult for drivers to read signals. Of course, the rail industry once came up with the wrong kind of snow; now, the wrong kind of sunshine affects people’s service. It is, as many other hon. Members have said, a scandalous position.

I could quote at length what other constituents have said, because I get complaints about the service three or four times a week, if not every day. One constituent said:

“I genuinely cannot remember the last time the trains were running even remotely close to the timetable. This is hugely frustrating when juggling commuting and childcare commitments. It is not fair on my employer that my time of arrival at work is largely in the lap of the gods and not fair on my son when I have to work late to make up for my late arrival.

As you are aware, it is an expensive business commuting into London and it is absolutely unacceptable to receive such a shoddy service at such a high price.”

And so say nearly all the constituents who have contacted me on this matter. Another said:

“I board at Kent House on the 8.59 or 9.14 trains most working days and the trains have been late by 5-15 minutes every day this year, and some are cancelled on a semi-regular basis. As the services are costing more and more every year, the level of service…is not adequate.”

Indeed, it is going backwards. That is the experience of my constituents and those of most other hon. Members who have spoken. It is completely intolerable. As others have said, if Southeastern cannot run the trains, it should hand the franchise over to someone who can.

London Bridge Station (Redevelopment)

Jim Dowd Excerpts

Tuesday 27th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

I will be as brief as possible, although given the volume of material that I have received from constituents about this subject, I could take up the rest of the morning, let alone five minutes. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) for sharing her time with us. The issue is critical for all of us in south-east London. As she suggested, I will concentrate on Southern services.

Rail transport throughout south-east London is particularly important. Of all 32 London boroughs, including the City of London, Lewisham has the highest proportion of residents who work outside their borough, so all public transport, and rail in particular, is evidently important to them. Transport is critical to the well-being of residents and the community at large.

Our recent experience includes the shambles that is London Bridge station and Southern rail generally, even predating this disruption. Network Rail states on its website that there are two types of disruption at London Bridge: “planned disruption” and “unplanned disruption”. I am not sure where the overlap lies, but the fact of the matter is that the travelling public pay the price and suffer the consequences.

Like my colleagues, I thank the Minister for her involvement and interest, right back to our immediate return after Christmas, and for organising last week’s meeting. I very much look forward to speaking to Southern Railway on Monday afternoon. Southern’s performance—certainly subsequent to 5 January, but previously as well—has been lamentable and shameful. It predates the problem with the Thameslink work at London Bridge by a number of months.

When deciding what to say in the few moments that I have, I thought that I could do no better than to repeat what some of my constituents have told me. A resident of Penge said of London Bridge station:

“The works taking place there caused constant delays and cancellations last year, and so far this year the station has pretty much ground to a halt.”

A resident of Forest Hill said that on the evening of 5 January they

“left London Bridge in tears having been crushed by the crowds being kettled into a small part of the concourse. Half empty trains left with us not being allowed access to them by Network Rail staff.”

The impact on services into London Bridge is reflected in the impact on services out for people travelling south. One constituent said on 7 January:

“Today the 8am, 8.30 and 9.30 trains were cancelled”

between Brockley and Streatham Hill, with

“no excuses at all so I and my fellow passengers have no idea what the problem was. I really feel it’s just not good enough and I was told today that it’s going to be like this until 2018.”

Another constituent from Penge said:

“We’re only a week or so into the ‘works’ so I guess we need to see how it settles down but it’s apparent at this stage that the train companies, Southern, Southeastern, Thameslink and Overground have not planned adequately for these changes and made additional capacity available.”

That is the point that my hon. Friends the Members for Lewisham East and for Eltham (Clive Efford) were making about the rebuilding of London Bridge.

I speak as someone who started to commute into London Bridge station more than 50 years ago to get to my school at Stamford street, between Waterloo and Blackfriars road, so I know it well from the days of steam, amazingly enough—I am probably alone in the Chamber in remembering that. Even though there were southern electric services at London Bridge, steam trains still ran. It has always been a Cinderella station without the kind of impact of the other stations mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East, but it is a critical one. Those pictures of people walking across London bridge to get to the City are almost invariably of people coming from London Bridge station. It is a vital interchange and artery, but at the moment it is completely and utterly clogged up.

As I said, the problems with Southern trains predate the work that is going on. A constituent who lives a few doors from my constituency office carried out a survey of 19 journeys between 7 June and 1 August last year on services from Forest Hill to London Bridge. Seven of those 19 trains were on time, while the other 12 were between three minutes and 44 minutes late, and that is for a journey that should take only 16 minutes. That has been the standard for quite a long time now.

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

I am grateful for the passion that Opposition Members are expressing on behalf of their constituents, which I share. Although there have been problems at London Bridge, I am pleased to say that, through the Thameslink programme, regular updates and communications have been received by the train operating companies. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that those companies need to improve their communications during this difficult time?

[Jim Dowd]

Indeed I do, but while communications are one thing, people want to rely on performance. If trains are running properly and with enough capacity, they do not need explanations. Communication is needed when things go wrong, and they are going wrong far too often via London Bridge. There is much else that I am tempted to say, but I have gone beyond the time that we agreed, so I will leave it there.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

There is only a slight delay on the line, Mr Dowd, so I would not worry too much.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Perry]

I do not know and I am not sure—I will need to check whether the information is commercially confidential—but, like the hon. Lady and other hon. Members present, I share the aspiration to reward commuters. As the hon. Member for Eltham pointed out, today we have the results of the passenger satisfaction survey. Commuters are clearly very unhappy with the services they are getting. These people are going to and from work and paying for season tickets to do so. They expect a better service.

May I touch on the point about fares that the hon. Member for Lewisham East made?

[Jim Dowd]

Will the Minister give way?

[Claire Perry]

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I want to make this point, because it is important. The hon. Member for Lewisham East will be aware that, until recently, fares on this franchise were rather inflation busting and measures of up to RPI plus 3 plus flex were permitted. That has been scrapped, so now passengers on this franchise, like passengers right across the country, are benefiting from this Government’s decision to freeze fares in real terms—RPI plus zero for last year and this year—and to scrap the flex, which meant that additional fares could also go up by 2%. [Interruption.] The hon. Lady says that that is not enough, but it was a bold decision to take, particularly at a time when family budgets are stretched.

I will make a quick comment, if the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge will allow me, about Southern, because I know it is important for his constituency. Southern’s performance currently is inexcusable, and I will make that point, as I expect other hon. Members to make it, at the performance summit we are holding next week. Network Rail’s infrastructure problems are causing many of the difficulties with the timetable along the line. I expect Network Rail and Southern to sort that out as soon as possible.

Let me make a couple of general points in conclusion. We have to learn lessons, because we are continuing to do this work at London Bridge until 2018. It is vital that whatever went wrong after Christmas—not enough communication and not enough modelling of the platform flows—is addressed, because we will be asking a lot from passengers. Let me put on the record my thanks to passengers for their tolerance at a time of great disruption. We are very aware that we are disrupting people’s lives, but the prize is a much better service and a station that is much more fit for purpose.

I am grateful to the hon. Members in the Chamber and others across the House for ensuring that all parties involved in the reinvention of London Bridge remain really aware of passenger concerns. My officials are in daily contact with Southeastern and Southern. We are all focused on the need to minimise inconvenience and maximise communication to passengers. There are constraints on what we can do, and there are years of work ahead, but I am determined that the unprecedented investment that we are making right across the country will be seen and felt as benefits for passengers as soon as possible.

[Claire Perry]

I will double-check the timing of that; it is part of the Thameslink programme. It is an addition, as the hon. Lady knows, to bring more rolling stock and longer trains right across the network, but I will check.

[Jim Dowd]

This is the point that I wanted to make. The Minister will be aware that Southern has cancelled all the peak-hour evening services from London Bridge to West Croydon and is encouraging people to use Overground instead. Actually, it is encouraging them to go on to Norwood Junction and then go back to the station that they originally wanted to get to. That is now causing severe overcrowding on the Overground service, so will she look into it?

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Gentleman is aware that that is a temporary reduction in the service, designed to let the new timetable, which is more disruptive for Southern operations rather than Southeastern, bed in. The hope is that those services will be restored as soon as possible. I am very aware of the concerns.

Let me put it on the record that all of us realise that many people at London Bridge station are working very hard on a daily basis to deal with the disruption. These are people on the front line—operational staff. We would all like to pass on our thanks to everyone out there who is trying to maximise convenience for passengers.

Network Rail

Jim Dowd Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (UKIP)]

Network Rail has a quite extraordinary governance structure. It was set up in that way, as I think almost all parties would agree, with the primary aim of keeping its debt off the Government’s books. However, since a ruling from Eurostat, implemented by the Office for National Statistics here, that debt is now on the Government’s balance sheets, with that decision having been taken finally in December 2013, with the reclassification of the entity taking effect on 1 September 2014.

Last week, when I asked the Secretary of State for Transport whether it was not therefore time to reform Network Rail’s labyrinthine governance structure to make it more accountable, he replied that he would take my question as a representation to cancel the building of a new railway station in my constituency. I fear that exchange probably told us more about the Secretary of State’s character than it did about the governance of Network Rail, hence today’s debate, which follows yesterday’s publication of Network Rail’s report on the post-Christmas disruption. I will focus on two issues—pay and governance—before finally making one or two remarks about Rochester and the applicability of these issues to my constituency.

Yesterday, a report was published by Dr Francis Paonessa, who is the managing director of infrastructure projects at Network Rail. He is paid an annual salary of £425,000 with a further bonus opportunity of 20% of salary. I intend no personal criticism to Dr Francis Paonessa, who is clearly a manager of stature. Before taking his current role with Network Rail, he was the UK managing director of Bombardier, which, under his leadership, secured the important Crossrail contract for building trains, having previously lost out on the Thameslink contract to Siemens. Clearly, running leading infrastructure projects requires a different set of skills, given their complexity, but he replaced Simon Kirby, who moved on to head up HS2 Ltd as chief executive—clearly a huge job, at least potentially. However, the excessive cost structure in the rail industry, led by Network Rail, underlines my party’s belief that HS2 is unaffordable. Half a dozen people at Network Rail, at least, earn similar sums to Dr Francis Paonessa. Mark Carne, the chief executive, earns substantially more. Why has their pay not been cut to reflect the transfer of Network Rail as an organisation from the private to the public sector?

We talk often, as a comparator, about how much the Prime Minister earns, but the numbers of people earning in excess of the Prime Minister’s salary are legion within Network Rail. It has moved from being a private sector to a public sector organisation, and surely we should be told what new standards are being applied in Network Rail following that move.

In March 2012, the Department for Transport wrote:

“As a private sector company, Network Rail sets performance pay levels for its senior staff”—

but it no longer is a private sector company, so who is setting those pay and performance-related pay numbers now? Who are those senior managers accountable to for their pay? Is it the Secretary of State? Is it the so-called members of Network Rail, about which more in a moment, or is it themselves? Mark Carne has announced that he intends to limit his bonus to just 5% of his salary—of course, that bonus will still be more than average earnings across the country and in my constituency.

In particular, we have seen the failures over the post-Christmas period and the disruption that caused to many people across the country seeking to use the network, the extent to which it has become standard to have long-running periods of shutdown over Christmas and new year, the length of some of these infrastructure projects and the closures involved and the lack of predictability about them. In my constituency, we greatly welcomed the new railway station in Rochester, but one point I have from my constituents is why people cannot be warned further in advance about closures, so that they can plan around them.

[Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

On the point about the disruption and giving notice in advance, Network Rail had years to prepare for the shutdown of London Bridge station over the recent Christmas period as part of the admirable Thameslink programme. However, they made a huge blunder in organising that, the effects of which have still not been concluded and people’s journeys are still being disrupted. It is not bonuses that the managers should be looking at, but fines.

[Mark Reckless]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, which comes back to how these people are held accountable and whether that is through the withholding of a bonus or some other form of discipline, such as a reduction in salary. I do not know whether we are talking about fines, perhaps on a regulatory basis, or whether he is suggesting that it should be on a criminal basis—that would be very strong for such a management role. What I think my constituents and his want is accountability, and we simply do not have that with the current structure.

From 1 September 2014, we have had a new agreement between the Department and Network Rail, but there is, I believe at least, a lack of clarity about what difference that agreement is making in how Network Rail is held to account. Why do we still have these 46 public members and a similar number of industry members, ostensibly playing a part akin to shareholders in this organisation? There was a vote back in, I believe, November 2009. Thirty-six of those members—I do not know whether turkeys voting for Christmas is a fair comparison here—voted to decrease their numbers, but 36 voted against that, and that has remained the situation ever since, despite the Government saying again in March 2012:

“We therefore welcome the governance proposals that Network Rail is announcing, including: reducing the number of members to a more sensible level, thereby improving the quality of decision-making.”

Has that happened?

In the same report, “Reforming our Railways: Putting the Customer First”, the Government said:

“Network Rail is a private-sector, not-for-dividend company, limited by guarantee…we believe the existing structure is capable of delivering the outcomes and the savings we need without disruptive and unnecessary organisational change... equity is a strong driver of efficiency and value for money.”

How in this unique, convoluted, labyrinthine governance structure does equity operate as a driver of efficiency? We have these industry members that the board reports to, to a degree. One might think it is useful perhaps to have that reporting line to the customer, but whenever those customers’ interests are involved, that member steps aside on the basis of there being a conflict of interest, so how can that governance structure work and is it really a sensible way for us to proceed?

In my constituency of Rochester and Strood, we have had the impact of the London Bridge changes. The disruption has affected some people. The sheer length of the closure of London Bridge station for Charing Cross-bound trains that we are currently dealing with is an enormous issue. We have to hold Network Rail to account for the costs that it applies, which are largely passed on in fares to the customer, but also for the length of time that these projects take. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s view. Could she tell us what she has done to ensure that that closure period is as short as possible and the costs are as low as possible? I just have an innate suspicion of an organisation that is not accountable, or at least not in a way that I can understand or in the way in which other organisations are.

The Minister will no doubt refer to the report, published yesterday by Dr Francis Paonessa, explaining away, defending and, to an extent, putting Network Rail’s side of the story in terms of the disruption that we saw immediately after Christmas, but that report is not addressed to anyone. I do not know: is it for the board of Network Rail, for its members, for the Secretary of State or for Parliament? It does not say. There is a foreword by Mark Carne and a whole series of explanations and, to some extent, excuses, but who ultimately holds Network Rail to account for that? Why is it being paid so much money? Why is that disruption allowed, and do we really believe that this labyrinthine governance structure and the costs that we see in this industry are the best we can do? I believe that this country can do it better, and it is time we got on with that and dealt with some of the governance issues at Network Rail and ensured that it works better.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Perry]

I am keen to answer the questions, if the hon. Gentleman will allow me to proceed.

As I was saying, an unprecedented amount of engineering work went on over the holiday period, because the main driver of problems on the railways is twofold. First, passenger growth is unprecedented. About 1.6 billion passenger journeys are now made every year, twice as many as before privatisation. Secondly, successive Governments have underinvested in the railways for many a long year.

The hon. Gentleman asked about London Bridge station, as did the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Jim Dowd). That station is 176 years old, and frankly, it has been ignored, although it is one of the busiest pinch points into London. That work is finally being done, so that residents across the south and south-east can transit in and out of London much more effectively.

[Jim Dowd]

I congratulate the Minister on organising a meeting next week with the principal train operating companies running into London Bridge—Southern and Southeastern. Can she confirm that we will also have an opportunity to consider the position regarding London Bridge itself and the colossal debacle that my constituents and many others have had to experience for 10 days now, with little sign of the problems abating?

[Claire Perry]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman; I think that he uses a good adjective. I have visited the station, and my officials have been there. The Secretary of State himself went there during rush hour. We are extremely concerned that the engineering works, which are fantastically overdue, are delivered in a way that does not inconvenience passengers. That gets to the crux of the matter.

This is not a governance problem; it is a failure to work across industry, with passenger benefit front and central. Enormous operational improvements will clearly be delivered by this Government’s unprecedented £38 billion investment in the railways, which is long overdue and will benefit all Members in this room, but it must be delivered by thinking first and foremost about how passengers will use the network and about the benefits for them.

As we saw in the McNulty report published several years ago, the challenge for British railways is to do what we suggested then and join up the objectives of Network Rail and the train operating companies to carry on this unprecedented amount of investment, as we know can be done across the network. I am happy to reassure Members that the Government are committed across the board not only to ensuring operational independence, but, clearly, to delivering better services for passengers in the running of the railways. I am also happy to reassure Members that we remain committed to our huge programme of planned improvements, including the entire rebuild of Rochester station by the end of this year and £120 million of signalling works in east Kent, which I am sure the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood is rising to congratulate the Government on providing.

London Transport Zones (Croydon)

Jim Dowd Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Crausby. I am delighted to have this opportunity to make the case for moving East Croydon and West Croydon stations from zone 5 to zone 4, or more precisely to zone 4/5, saving local commuters up to £336 on the cost of an annual travelcard into central London.

I hope to make the case for change by establishing, first, that these stations are closer to central London than other stations that are already in zone 4; secondly, that there is ample precedent for stations being re-zoned when a persuasive social and economic case is made; thirdly, that re-zoning these stations will support the local Labour council’s ambitious £9.5 billion growth and regeneration bid that would benefit a large swathe of south London and south-east England; fourthly, that there will be a net financial benefit from making this change; and finally that there will be much-needed savings for people travelling into central London, but no increase in fares for people travelling into Croydon from further south.

Travel distances from central London are standardised by measuring from Charing Cross. On that basis, East Croydon station is 9.3 miles away and West Croydon station is 9 miles away. The two stations, serving areas that include the town centre, are both in zone 5 on Transport for London’s transport travel zone maps, but many London stations that are further away are included in zone 4, including Kenton, which is 9.7 miles from Charing Cross, Malden Manor, which is 10.3 miles out, Hounslow, which is 10.6 miles out, Abbey Wood, which is 10.7 miles away and Chigwell, which is 11.7 miles away from Charing Cross. There is clearly an anomaly when those stations, all further from central London than East Croydon and West Croydon, are all in zone 4, while the Croydon stations are in zone 5. On the TfL map it looks as though the zone boundaries carve out Croydon for no good reason, although it has the effect of costing Croydon’s commuters more in travel fares than other Londoners have to pay to travel greater distances.

There is strong support for making this change from commuters I have spoken to outside both stations. One or two people have asked whether it is actually possible to get stations moved into different travel zones. The good news is that it is not only possible, but it has happened on many occasions—I have mentioned some—and there is no reason why it cannot also happen in Croydon, given the strength of the case.

[Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

Can I take my hon. Friend to the northern extremity of his constituency, where it shares a boundary with mine, to Crystal Palace station? Even though that station is in my constituency, a lot of his constituents use it. That station was re-zoned a few years ago—it was zone 4 and now it is zone 3/4—yet Penge East, which is a bit further away but has a much better service into Victoria and is in railway terms much closer, is in zone 4. People who want to get to Victoria quickly have to pay a premium for doing so. There are obviously problems with boundaries anyway, but there are huge anomalies in that part of London, and I wish my hon. Friend well in what he is trying to do.

[Mr Reed]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his contribution and I wish him luck in his campaign to secure a better outcome for Penge East and the many commuters living in his constituency who commute into London from that station.

I remember well that Crystal Palace station was moved into zone 3/4 in 2004. Similarly, in 2007, Roding Valley, Chigwell, Grange Hill, Hainault, and Barkingside were all moved into zone 4 from zone 5. Earlier this year Stratford, Stratford High Street and Stratford International stations were all moved from zone 3 to zone 2/3. These are just a few of many examples of London stations being re-zoned.

Re-zoning Stratford was estimated to cost around £7 million, primarily, I understand, in reduced fare income, but it is expected to bring at least £25 million in increased economic benefit to the area every year. Croydon would also, in all likelihood, cost a similar amount but would also generate vastly more in economic benefit than it costs.

Croydon elected a Labour council earlier this year on a promise to be “Ambitious for Croydon”. I am delighted that it has been as good as its word and has unveiled an extraordinarily bold but eminently achievable £9.5 billion regeneration and growth package for the borough that could bring in 16,000 new jobs, 9,500 new homes and around 2,000 new businesses. The effects will generate economic growth not just in Croydon, but across a wide swathe of south London and along a corridor stretching from Croydon to the south coast via Gatwick airport, whose own expansion plans are co-ordinated with Croydon’s. Re-designating Croydon’s two central stations in the heart of this regeneration zone as travel zone 4 would help underline how close the area is to central London, as well as making Croydon more attractive to investors, businesses, home buyers, workers and visitors.

There are some concerns that re-zoning these stations would lead to higher fares for people travelling into central Croydon from other parts of the borough that are currently in the same fare zone. In fact, that would not be the case. There is no extra cost for travelling from zone 5 into zone 4, and the pay-as-you-go single fares and daily caps are the same for travelling across zone 4 and 5 as travelling within either of the two zones. Commuters travelling from East Croydon or West Croydon stations into central London would realise considerable savings. An annual travelcard holder would save up to £336 a year if this change were made. At a time when many people have found their wages held down or cut in real terms, this saving in travel costs would be particularly welcome.

I pay tribute to people who have offered support to the Zone 4 Croydon campaign, first and foremost the hundreds of Croydon commuters who were quick to sign a petition in support of making this change that I will, in due course, seek to raise on their behalf with the Mayor of London. He is ultimately responsible for taking the decision, subject to approval by the Department for Transport. I should mention Sarah Jones, a local mum and campaigner, who has recently been selected as Labour’s parliamentary candidate in Croydon Central, who launched the campaign with me. I am grateful to the Croydon Guardian and the Croydon Advertiser for their support, and to the leader of Croydon council, who has personally backed the campaign and intends to seek the formal endorsement of the council within weeks. There is real, strong support in Croydon for making this change. I trust that we will hear today that the Government will also offer their unequivocal support.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge suggested, south London is poorly served by the current zoning arrangements, relative to other parts of the capital. This is not a problem that affects only East Croydon and West Croydon stations. Although I strongly sympathise with the other cases, I would not want any decision about East Croydon and West Croydon to be delayed while other worthy cases are also considered. Local commuters would not thank anyone who tried to put hurdles of this kind in the way of making this change. Re-zoning is not something that has to be implemented across a number of stations at the same time. It has always happened incrementally.

I believe the strength of the social and economic case, and simple fairness, demand that East Croydon and West Croydon stations must be moved into zone 4 as soon as possible. I look forward to hearing the Government’s view and hope very much that it is supportive and positive.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Goodwill]

I understand the sensible point that the hon. Gentleman is making, which contributes to the debate. It is possible that the economic benefits to the area would outweigh the costs, but the question cannot be answered without some serious consideration. How would re-zoning impact businesses in the area? How would it impact residents? How would it impact surrounding stations and the areas that they serve? For example, passengers who live slightly closer to a station that was in the next zone might decide to change their journey plans and travel to East Croydon to save on their season ticket. The change could put increasing pressure on the station, which is already very busy.

The train operating companies would need to investigate all those issues. The argument for re-zoning would need to be demonstrated in a robust business case. The effects of re-zoning a station are not only financial; there would also be changes to demand at the stations. If it is cheaper to travel from one station in an area than another, people will choose the cheapest journey. That is the logical response, but a change will also make stations more crowded. East Croydon is already one of the busiest stations in the UK outside central London, and re-zoning it would make that worse.

[Jim Dowd]

A constituent raised the issue that my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed) kindly allowed me to mention earlier. The Minister said that passengers will choose the cheapest option, but that is not true in every case. It is also about the service. In the case that I highlighted, Crystal Palace is eight stations from Victoria, but Penge East is a mere five stations away. It is a much faster service from Penge East, although it is more expensive. People choose to go from Penge East; they do not necessarily go for the cheapest option.

[Mr Goodwill]

The hon. Gentleman is right. The current zoning seems to as much be down to historical reasoning as anything else, but it is the basis on which the franchises have been let and the basis on which the train operating companies have calculated their revenue. In cases of re-zoning, compensation might need to be paid to those train operating companies to allow for the difference in income.

Is increased congestion at their station a trade-off that commuters are willing to make? Is it a trade-off that provides value for money? Finally, what consideration has been given to commuters who travel into Croydon for work? As the hon. Member for Croydon North has said, Croydon’s economy is flourishing and there are many jobs in the local area. If Croydon is re-zoned, travel costs for people living in London’s outer zones could increase significantly.

TfL (Funding and Station Staffing)

Jim Dowd Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[John McDonnell]

Not completely. The alternative, as my right hon. Friend said, is investment, growth, and tax collection. Interestingly, today we received a brief from the London assembly arguing for that specifically. My right hon. Friend’s proposal is supported by the London assembly, and the Mayor should listen, as should the Government.

There is an alternative if we invest, but the growth in the number of passengers must be recognised. London Underground faces cuts not because of falling demand, but the opposite. Since 1996, there has been a 60% increase in passenger numbers. Transport for London’s business plan predicts that passenger journeys will rise by 13.7% from 1.273 billion in 2013-14 to 1.448 billion in 2020-21. The same plan predicts that the population growth in London will be to 10 million in 2030. The alternative to cuts is to accept reality, and that sheer passenger demand will require London Underground to take on more staff, not fewer.

In recent decades, various London Underground contracts were taken over by private companies. That has caused public money to leave the system while bureaucracy and inefficiency has increased. Some of those contracts have since returned to the public sector, as hon. Members know, including those relating to Metronet, Jubilee line train maintenance and London Underground’s power supply. TfL saved £56 million by bringing power supply back into London Underground at a lower than expected cost. It expects that to bring significant savings in future years that will more than offset the initial cost.

Re-integrating Metronet has provided London Underground with an ongoing year-on-year saving; it was £53 million in 2012-13. If TfL re-integrated other elements of London Underground that were previously privatised, it would save significant sums of money. That could include tube lines that are in public ownership but not integrated with the rest of the tube. I am talking about cleaning, catering, ticket machine maintenance, engineering contracts, Northern line train maintenance and recruitment.

Let me finally counter some of the arguments that TfL put forward, some of which are bizarre. TfL has said that only 3% of journeys involve a visit to a ticket office, but that is 100,000 people a day. Even if the majority do not visit ticket offices, it is essential that there is a service for those passengers who do. TfL has said that London Underground’s plan will make its staff more visible around the stations. I find that difficult to believe when 950 staff—17% of existing staff—will be removed. Staff will be scattered around the station, rather than at one location.

[Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

On redeploying staff from ticket offices, the crux of the matter is that increasing visibility is incompatible with losing the best part of 1,000 front-line jobs that deal with the London travelling public. It is not just those with special needs and disabilities who will be affected by this proposal; every person travelling on the London underground will suffer a degraded level of service as a result of these proposals.

[John McDonnell]

rose—

Cost of Living

Jim Dowd Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Malcolm Wicks]

I will give way in a moment—if the intervention is a good one.

As a Government, we also tried to push forward carbon capture and storage—a formidable endeavour, and I congratulate the Norwegians on the progress they have made. It would be good to hear from the Government at some stage where they think we are on CCS because it is a vital part of our low-carbon objectives, given that despite renewables and nuclear, we will continue to invest in and use a great deal of fossil fuels in the future.

We also need to talk about nuclear energy. The withdrawal of the German consortium has been a formidable blow to our plans for nuclear energy, but I put it to the Secretary of State that, despite what he says, the last Labour Government’s decision to allow a new generation of civil nuclear reactors was a crucial strategic decision. As I recall—again I draw on my memory—one reason why Parliament took rather a long time to reach that decision was that one of our major parties, and I think it was the Liberal Democrats—

[Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

Major?

[Malcolm Wicks]

I am a kind person, and I suppose it was major until recently. That party was adamantly opposed to nuclear energy. I ask the Secretary of State whether he has now made a strategic realignment in his own mind to support nuclear energy. I hope he has. I think the fact that the Prime Minister has appointed Liberal Democrat Members to this important role of Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change shows that he maintains a sense of humour—one that he will need in the weeks and the trials, which is a term I use in the generic sense, to come.

While I am speaking about energy policy rather than family policy, which I shall come to in a moment, I want to emphasise the importance of the global context. We cannot discuss this issue only domestically. If I am right, the International Energy Agency projects in one of its central scenarios that global energy demand, mainly from non-OECD countries, will rise by about 40% by 2035. We must view our issues within that global context, we have to take energy security seriously and we have to build up what I have always called home-grown energy as much as we can, alongside reducing energy demand—hence the importance of nuclear and of renewable energy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Malcolm Wicks]

Yes, I am, because our welfare state, although a mixture of universal and selective provision, nevertheless needs that universal core if it is to command public respect. Those of the hon. Gentleman’s constituents who have a couple of children, and who will suffer as a result of this provision, have costs, by definition, which the single person or the childless couple do not have. It is part of a decent society that we recognise those costs. It is also important that we do not move toward arguing, as the hon. Gentleman might want to argue, “Why on earth provide free education or a free health service to people earning £70,000? Why not cut that out?” That is a very slippery slope.

[Jim Dowd]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, given the orthodoxy among Government Members as articulated by the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry), it is patently clear that the winter fuel allowance and universal free travel for pensioners cannot last?

[Malcolm Wicks]

That is the logic of the position and, to be fair, many on the free-market wing of the Conservative party—such as the Institute of Economic Affairs think-tank—have been arguing for decades against universal provision and for a move towards a residual welfare state just for the poor, guarded strictly by the means test. That is the logic of some of these arguments.

I want to make two more specific points that I think colleagues understand. As I said, this policy is a case study of unintended consequences. The Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Treasury Ministers and officials did not set out to say—I am being generous now—“Let’s design a child benefit policy so that a family in which mum and dad earn just under £50,000 combined will maintain child benefit, but if there is only one earner bringing in over £60,000, that family will lose child benefit.” No sensible Treasury policy would have reached that conclusion, but because this one was rushed and ill-thought-out, that is the consequence. I do not know what the constituents of the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry), some of whom will be affected by this policy, will make of that. Where both members of a couple are earning a lot of money—nearly £50,000 each, following the revision, so they will have almost £100,000—they will keep their child benefit. However, if their next-door neighbours consist of a mum at home looking after the young ones, and a father earning over £60,000, his child benefit will be lost. Not even the hon. Gentleman, in his loyalist rash of enthusiasm, would defend that, surely. Would he?

--- Later in debate ---

[Barbara Keeley]

It is very disingenuous of a member of a Government who have just massively ducked this issue in the Queen’s Speech, causing huge disappointment across any organisation that is involved in social care, to talk about the previous Government.

[Jim Dowd]

Whether or not this goes back to the letter from the 78 charities before the election, the Local Government Association, on behalf of all the parties represented in social services authorities throughout England and Wales, wrote to the Government immediately before the Queen’s Speech highlighting the fact that there was this crisis which needed to be dealt with now, and that if they did not do so in the Queen’s Speech—not as a draft Bill but as proposed legislation—an already alarming position would be made far worse.

[Barbara Keeley]

I thank my hon. Friend for that clarification. The letter went on to say that “delay or half-measures” cannot be tolerated because of how hard it is for people to manage, as I have just outlined.

In July 2010, the Government promised that they would introduce

“legislation in the second session of this parliament to establish a sustainable legal and financial framework for adult social care”.

That could not have been clearer, but we do not have that legislation. All that was mentioned in the Queen’s Speech was a draft Bill on social care law, with no Bill on the funding of social care.

What does the delay in reforming the funding of social care mean? It means that people who need care will have to continue paying larger and larger bills or go without and struggle. There are also costs to the NHS and to the economy. That should concern us. The lack of appropriate social care for older people at home is costing the NHS £18.5 million a month, or more than £600,000 a day, in delayed discharges. Since August 2010, the total bill to the NHS of delayed discharges has been £324 million. Delayed discharges keep on increasing, which is an indication that the crisis in social care is deepening.

On the cost to the economy, a recent report by Carers UK suggests that failing to address the funding of care, as other countries have done, means that we are missing out on jobs and growth. The biggest thing that was missing from the Queen’s Speech and the Budget was action on jobs and growth. In France, a development strategy for the home care sector led to a growth of 100,000 jobs a year. A recent report by Dr Linda Pickard of the London School of Economics shows that it costs about £1.3 billion a year in lost tax revenue and benefits when carers give up work to care. The adult social care system has been pushed into crisis by cuts, and that is costing the economy more than a billion pounds and the NHS hundreds of millions of pounds. Surely that shows that we should do something about social care.

The Government’s distinct failure to deliver on their promise to bring forward legislation, which I think will become more apparent in the coming months, is hitting older people and those who need care. It has cost £324 million since 2010, and that bill is climbing by £18.5 million every month. As carers give up work to care, it is costing the economy £1.3 billion every year in lost revenue. It is time the Government delivered on their promise and addressed the vital issue of the funding of social care.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

I am conscious that there are many more Members—certainly on the Opposition Benches—who still wish to speak, so I shall be as brief as I can. I am happy to speak in today’s debate on the Queen’s Speech about the cost of living, and to support the amendment in the name of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, concentrating as it does on energy costs, fares and petrol prices.

Fares, and particularly rail fares, are critical to people in Lewisham generally, and in my part of it especially, as we have the highest proportion of residents in any London borough who commute to work outside their borough, although we do not have as many people in work as we once did. I welcome today’s marginal fall in unemployment, as any sensible person would, but in Lewisham in particular there are still 20 people unemployed for every vacancy. The cost of commuting by rail from my part of the constituency into London Bridge, Charing Cross and Victoria is extremely important, which is why I am keen to support what the Opposition are saying today.

Following on from what many other colleagues have said today, my constituents are also very concerned about the conduct of the big six energy companies. There is a strong feeling, not just across my constituency but across the country, that people do not get a fair deal from the big six—that they effectively operate a cartel, with myriad deals, special deals, “supersaver” deals, “half-past-Tuesday deals” and God knows what else, so that people do not know whether they are getting the best deal. I accept that the big six have stopped the scandalous cold-calling campaigns of recent years—as far as I am aware, all but one do not do that any more. However, there is still a major concern among the public generally that the big six are not as accountable as they should be.

The previous speaker, the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry), mentioned smart metering and the opportunities that it provides. Smart metering could be a huge benefit to the economy and to the public more broadly, provided that it is done in the most objective and reasonable fashion, and not merely to accommodate the whims of the big six, which of course have a critical role to play in its implementation.

I also had a passage in my speech about the social care Bill, or rather the lack of a social care Bill in the Queen’s Speech. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) dealt with that issue far more elegantly and eloquently than I could, I will not belabour the point—although it is not unusual in this place for at least half a dozen people to say something that somebody else has said already. Nevertheless, the absence of a social care Bill is a huge missed opportunity, given the amount of spadework that has been done on the subject by local authorities and by the Dilnot review.

I want to deal with an issue mentioned by the hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys), my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) and others—the setting up of an adjudicator on the groceries code of conduct. Everyone has welcomed it, quite reasonably, but I fear that there is not as much to it as meets the eye.

I am sorry that the hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) is no longer in his place. He used to be vice-chairman of the all-party small shops group back in 2005 when I was the chairman. We conducted an inquiry into “High Street UK 2015”, looking into what the future of the high street would be 10 years on from 2005 if the current trends in retailing and the current regulatory regime remained in place. Staggeringly, we are now only three years away from 2015, and much of what we suggested in the report has, sadly, proved to be true. That was echoed in the report by Mary Portas and the proposals she made to address the situation.

Having looked at this subject in great detail over a long time, I have to admit, sadly, that I am deeply pessimistic. I am not sure that many of our traditional high streets have not changed for ever—and not necessarily for the better. The belief that something probably cannot be achieved should not stop us from making the effort, and I welcome the efforts of those involved.

One recommendation in our report was to establish a supermarket ombudsman, but one who would have power across the whole sector, not just across the supply chain, important though that is. When the detail of the Government’s legislation is made public, I believe people will see that only a narrow and restrictive role is proposed for the adjudicator. We wanted the office and the office holder to have the ability to examine in detail the effect that the disproportionate power of the big supermarkets—the big four, as they are known—has on dictating the climate for retailing, and the disproportionate impact they can exert on small and independent retailers.

All we are likely to get from the Bill will be enforcement of a code of conduct that already exists. Even six years ago, a code was in place, but no one ever used it. The suppliers were able to take things up directly with the big supermarkets, but nobody ever did. There was not a single recorded case of suppliers ever taking forward an official complaint about one of the big supermarkets they supplied. Some would say that it is fairly obvious why they did not do so—because they would have lost the business, and it was better for them to carry on with the business, even under onerous terms, than to lose it altogether. On the other side, some argued that it showed how effective the code was—that it did not need to be enforced, that nobody needed to have recourse to it and that people could continue their relationship with their suppliers.

Incidentally, the bulk of suppliers are not, as many people think they are, small farmers with small supplies. That is not true. The bulk of suppliers to the big supermarkets are large corporations and large food processors. Most of the supermarkets’ product comes from them. While I welcome the introduction of the new office, I am pessimistic about its effect, as I do not think it will address the real problem, which is the disproportionate market power of the big four.

I shall skip over a few other matters and move on to the heart of the debate on the Queen’s Speech. I accept the qualification that some Members have highlighted—that the Queen’s Speech cannot say everything and that a Queen’s Speech cannot necessarily legislate for everything. That is perfectly true. Within the past few weeks, however, we have become aware of both the Budget and the Queen’s Speech. Those two items together should demonstrate the priorities, direction and intent of the Government. We now have a pretty good view of what their priorities are.

All this should be seen against the economic background of a double-dip recession at home and a eurozone crisis abroad. We are witnessing convulsions in Greece, Portugal, Italy, Spain and perhaps even France: the southern economies in the eurozone are in a parlous state. There is also growing concern, both nationally and internationally, not about debt, inflation or interest rates, but about growth, or rather the lack of growth. The Federation of Small Businesses drew attention to that last week, and yesterday the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Survey of Fund Managers observed:

“The proportion”

of leading international investors

“saying global fiscal policy is ‘too restrictive’ has… doubled to a net 23 percent”

within a month. That lack of demand is the most acute problem. It is more significant than either employment law or the impact of regulation. Even access to finance and credit is cited more often than those factors as a cause of businesses’ inability to expand and become profitable.

Today the Governor of the Bank of England downgraded the growth forecast from last year’s 2% figure to 0.8%. The Government must look, listen and learn, and reverse the damage that they are doing to the people, businesses and social fabric of this country, for it is that, more than anything contained in the Queen’s Speech, which will determine whether the future of the people of Britain is bright or bleak.

Cost of Motor Insurance

Jim Dowd Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

May I apologise to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) for missing the first few moments of her introduction to the debate? I commend her and the Committee for the excellent work they have done in this timely report. As she mentioned, the motor car has moved a long way from being a luxury to being, although not quite a necessity, something that is critical to the economic and social well-being of many millions of people across the country. Issues relating to cars clearly have a wide impact in every constituency.

The issue of young drivers concerns everybody. The difficulty that many of them have in obtaining insurance is only one part of that. I remember when I bought my first car back in—

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Penning)]

A Model T?

[Jim Dowd]

No, it was not a Model T—it was a Mini, back in 1968. It was six years old and it cost me just over £100. By the time I had got my insurance, which was £60, plus four-months’ road tax—as it was then and as the rest of the world calls it, or vehicle excise duty as we call it now—and an MOT certificate, I had spent as much on those three items as the car had cost me. I was quite young at the time and that was probably reflected in the premium, but none the less it was a shock to have to spend as much on ancillary costs as on the vehicle itself.

Today, we hear stories of young people having a vehicle costing a few hundred pounds and insurance premiums of more than £1,000. It is not the cost of the vehicle that is the issue; it is the risk of using it on the road. Effectively, motor insurance is a public liability insurance; one does not necessarily have to insure one’s property but one does have to insure against damage to other people’s property and, indeed, to other people. It is the scale of the problem that we need to look at. As has been said, there are more than 30 million cars on the road and it does not take a genius to work out that as the number of cars on the road rises, so the likelihood of accidents rises in similar proportion. However, I believe that this country has a very good, but still improvable, record on reducing road accidents and certainly road casualties.

One shock that I had in 1992 when I was first elected to the House—apart from having been elected to the House—was the fact that for the first time in more than 20 years I had to buy my own car. I had experienced the comparative luxury of having a company car in the intervening 20 years and precisely because I did not have a personal insurance record—a no-claims bonus, as everyone knows it—at that time, the first insurance quote I got was more than £1,200 for a very medium-range car, which my former company kindly sold to me. It was only when I got the company to provide me with a certificate saying that I had had blemish-free motoring for 10 years or more that the insurance company reduced the figure, but it still only came down to £800—and that was the better part of 20 years ago. The problems with increased costs in insurance and the increased likelihood of people driving uninsured, as well as the risks posed to those people and, more particularly, to everybody else, are intolerable.

Motor insurance is a curious entity in that it is one of the few examples, although not the only example, of a statutory obligation to purchase a product from a private supplier. There may be far more than one supplier, but one has to have motor insurance to drive on public roads. That places on the motor insurance industry particular responsibilities that it should meet but that would not otherwise arise. I think the situation implies that the industry should have the most stringent, open, transparent—I think a Government Member said that transparency was a key issue—and fair standards of behaviour towards customers because it has a captive market. I accept that people can move from one provider to another, but one thing they have to have to drive on public roads is motor insurance. If one’s household contents insurance premium becomes unsustainable or extortionate, one can either go to another supplier or take the risk on oneself. One can say, “The premiums are not worth what I’m paying: I’ll take the risk on myself. I don’t have to have it,” but the same is not true of motor insurance. If one wants to drive on a public road one has to be insured.

The industry is confronted by a number of problems, to which others have referred. For example, there is the rise in personal injury claims, almost all of which seem to include claims for whiplash injury, as well as the issue of referral fees, which the report has looked at and which others have mentioned. There is also the growth of the no win, no fee—or ambulance chasing, as it is known in some circles—industry, and the business of downright fraudulent claims. All these issues have to be grappled with by the industry, which is an extensive one, and I am sure that people will have different views about how well it is dealing with them.

The report covered a number of areas, including personal injury claims, referral fees, uninsured drivers and fraud, but it did not cover an area that I want to make particular reference to on behalf of one of my constituents. He is 73 years old, and he has been working as a minicab driver for a number of years. He has a state pension, although not a full one, and that is his only other income, so he is keen to carry on working. In August this year, his then insurer advised him not that it was putting up his premium but that it was cancelling his hire and reward cover. It gave no other reason than the fact that he was now 73, as though he had just gone across some magical threshold. It was not even prepared to take on the risk at a higher price.

My constituent quite understands that, as people grow older, so they might become a bigger risk and therefore have to pay a bigger premium, but the insurer would not increase the premium. It simply would not accept the risk, for no other reason than his age. His wife is somewhat younger than him, but she, too, is past retirement age. She is still working, however, so his recourse to benefits would be somewhat limited. He contacted other insurance companies and brokers, but to no avail. He got no offers at all to renew his hire and reward cover, which is essential for anyone wishing to work as a minicab driver.

My constituent’s social, domestic and pleasure policy was unaffected, except for a marginal increase in price. I could understand if the insurer felt that he was a danger to the public and should therefore not be on the road. I would not agree with such a proposition—I do not think that any sensible person would—but it would at least have the characteristic of consistency. As things stand, however, it is perfectly legal for him to drive on the roads as a private citizen in his very unglamorous minicab, but it is no longer possible for him to pursue his livelihood as a minicab driver.

The majority of the population have a driving licence, and I quite understand why they expire on the licence holder’s 70th birthday. The assumption is that we need to consider whether people are still fit to drive on public roads. The primary consideration must be safety, not least the safety of other road users, and it is perfectly reasonable to check people’s eyesight and reaction times more as they get older, to ensure that they can still drive safely. We are told that we have an increasingly ageing population, so this is going to become more and more of an issue. There is no question but that everyone who drives on public roads should be deemed fit to do so, but I cannot understand the distinction between my constituent driving as a private individual and driving for gain as a minicab driver.

After my constituent had been to see me, I wrote to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and to the director-general of the Association of British Insurers. I got a reply from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, in which he states:

“Some age-based practices, such as the use of broad age bands combined with significant price increases between age bands, may appear arbitrary. Insurers, however, use age bands as a means by which to price the risk of insuring a variety of individuals, and the transaction costs involved. The effects of age bands will, however, be reflected in the premium charged to an individual should they enter a new band.”

As I have said, my constituent has been denied that opportunity, as he has not been put into a new band. His premium has not been increased; it has been refused.

I also received a response from Mr Otto Thoresen, the director-general of the Association of British Insurers. I will read out a point that supports exactly what the Committee says in its report. He says:

“In 2010, motor insurers paid out £1.21 in claims and expenses for every £1 received in premiums. A combination of high legal costs, rapidly increasing personal injury claims, fraud, and a stubbornly high level of uninsured driving have driven the industry to a point where, after price stability and, in many cases, falling premiums in the middle of the last decade, they have now had to rise.”

The Committee makes that point as well. Mr Thoresen went on to say that there were issues relating to the taxi insurance business, and that

“evidence across the market has shown that the probability of being involved in an accident worsens as drivers reach their mid-70s”,

as my constituent is now doing.

One of the objections to the way in which insurance companies conduct their business is that, when it suits them to do so, they treat people as individuals, and if an individual has a particularly poor record, they will suffer the consequences. However, when it suits them, they also treat people as part of a group that has an alleged poor record, and increase the premiums accordingly. This never seems to work in the opposite direction.

Mr Thoresen suggested that my constituent continue to try to secure insurance through a specialist broker, and he very kindly gave me the details of four specialist companies for him to approach. My constituent contacted me again in the middle of October, having contacted all four companies. Of the four, three would not offer him insurance at all, and the one company that did so wanted about £750 a month. That amounts to well over £9,000 a year. I have absolute confidence that my constituent is an excellent minicab driver, and I am sure that his customers must be among the happiest in south London, but I am also fairly certain that he does not make enough money to pay £9,000 a year in insurance costs.

In the Financial Secretary’s response, he also said:

“Research has indicated that no age groups are specifically excluded from the insurance market”.

I suggest to him that it is unnecessary specifically to exclude anyone if they are being offered a price that is completely and utterly unaffordable. Theoretically, everyone in this country can go and stay at the Savoy—there is not a sign outside saying “No riff-raff”—but most people would not consider doing so because they cannot afford it. Similarly, in this case, that insurer made the cover so unaffordable that it might just as well have banned my constituent from having it. He and I have no objection to the need for an increase, but we object to the scale and disproportionate nature of that increase. All he wants to do is continue to pursue his livelihood and not have to depend on benefits.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making some important points. Does he agree that there might be scope for some new products in the motor insurance industry that could be tailored to older or younger drivers and perhaps designed around themes such as pay as you go? Such products could be made more affordable if they were tailored to specific age segments that have different risk profiles from those of the average driver.

[Jim Dowd]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that suggestion. I said earlier that the insurance market should be more personalised, rather than more generalised. Companies should certainly look into that. I fear that, because the motor insurance sector is a captive market, we do not get the level of service that we would get from, say, the home insurance sector, because it knows that everyone has to have insurance if they want to drive on public roads. I agree with the hon. Gentleman, however, that products should be tailored more specifically to the individual.

As I said, my constituent wants to continue to work. He does not want to become dependent on benefits. Some years ago, the then Secretary of State for Employment was famously misquoted as saying that people should get on their bikes to find work. The present Secretary of State for Work and Pensions advised people in south Wales to get on the bus and go to Cardiff to look for a job. My constituent wants to get in his minicab and work, but the insurance industry will not let him.

--- Later in debate ---

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

As a member of the Transport Committee, I, too, pay tribute to our Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), for leading the debate. The ever-rising cost of motor insurance simply cannot continue, and it is the only insurance that is compulsory. It is up to an individual, and perhaps their mortgage company, to insure their house, their holiday or anything else, but the law states that we must insure our cars and motorbikes; we are a captive audience. That is why it is absolutely right to debate the issue this evening.

Insurance premiums are bad enough for mature motorists, but for young drivers they are frankly ridiculous. They lead to young people finding solutions that are against the law. Research from the AA shows that more than a fifth of drivers under the age of 25 are prepared to break the law to avoid high insurance premiums. It shows that 21% would consider driving without insurance, 42% have changed the information they provide to an insurance firm to qualify for a cheaper policy, 22% have added another driver to their policy, 15% have changed whether they were the main driver, 3% have changed their employment information and 2% have changed information about their address.

All over the UK, otherwise law-abiding citizens are breaking the law to get affordable car insurance. For example, cars belonging to young people are being insured by their parents, with the parents registered as the main driver even though they never drive the car. Tragically, if one of those young people has an accident, their claim might not be met by the insurance company. It is bad enough to lose their car and possibly be prosecuted, but what about the person they might hurt?

Some young people are finding unique ways of overcoming the problem. For example, 18-year-old Chris Berry from Bolton was quoted £17,800 to insure his P-reg VW Polo. He is now using a 1953 Fordson Major tractor to get around, with an insurance premium of £57 a year. He said:

“If I had the choice, I’d have my car—I can go further in it and it would be much better in the rain. If you are image conscious, I don’t think you would drive the tractor…but it can go 40 mph on a good day”

He also told The Bolton News that the insurance company rang him up after he received the quote for nearly £18,000 to ask him whether he wanted to take it out. He said:

“I told them they were having a laugh—it’s a Polo, not a Ferrari”

Of course, no insurance company would offer him any sort of quote if it was a Ferrari.

[Jim Dowd]

I just want an assurance that he is not using red diesel for non-agricultural purposes.

[Julie Hilling]

I do not think so, although perhaps that is worth investigation.

We have heard much over the past few months about referral fees, which the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) mentioned. I am sure that other hon. Members will talk about that in detail, so I will confine my remarks to just a few points. I believe that referral fees must be stopped, but they should be stopped for the whole of a motor claim, not just the personal injury part. I also believe that the money paid to solicitors in the motor insurance portal should be reduced to an amount that simply covers the true cost of dealing with a case. While there is spare money in the system, there will always be a tendency to find another way of bypassing the ban. For instance, there is money to be made in referring claims for vehicle repairs. The Committee also heard about how credit hire cars are supplied to accident victims, rather than normal hire cars, which are much cheaper. We heard how insurance companies will pass claims to claims management companies, thereby building more costs into the system.

Although I agree that referral fees should be banned, the insurance industry should do more to tackle the situation. I challenged a number of insurance companies and their professional bodies to look to themselves for solutions. Whenever I have been involved in a claims situation, my first port of call has always been to my insurance company. Perhaps naively, I have expected it to sort the situation out. In times gone by there was the “knock for knock” policy; one’s insurance company funded the repairs to the vehicle, even if the fault was with another driver. I am told that the increased number of insurers in the industry and its internet basis stopped that policy.

The last time I had to use my insurance, I was clearly sold to a claims management company. Instead of the normal car hire company, I had a credit hire car, although I did not know anything about that at the time. I was contacted many times to claim for the “injuries” I had received, even though I had been sitting in my living room when someone drove into my car. Why did my insurance company not provide the necessary services itself and charge the other person’s insurer, or pass my case on to the other insurer to deal with?

I also believe that insurance companies could do far more to reward good drivers. The Pass Plus scheme was introduced to give additional post-test instructions to novice drivers, such as motorway driving, driving at night, town centre driving and so on. Initially that reduced premiums, but it seems that people with Pass Plus are no longer being rewarded. We have been told of schemes that can introduce technology into cars to show if a person is driving safely, for example when they are driving within speed limits and whether they accelerate and brake gently. I believe that the insurance companies should do more to promote such schemes.

We have been told about the very high propensity for young drivers to have serious accidents, but in truth it is not young drivers but young, male drivers, and I regret the European ruling that insurance premiums should be equalised for men and women. Insurance has always been based on risk, and it seems perverse that the ruling will end up costing women a great deal more because of the risky behaviour of men and, particularly, young men.

More regulation should therefore be introduced for novice drivers, and I should welcome a mandatory “newly qualified” plate, which exists in other European countries, because it would have two advantages. First, it would warn experienced drivers that the person in front just might do something a little out of the ordinary. Indeed, I remember the first time that I drove alone, along a country road, and a lorry decided to overtake me. I was absolutely terrified, but I am sure that the driver would have thought twice if he had realised that I had passed my test only the day before.

Secondly, the plate could be used to identify drivers on the road in order to enforce other restrictions that should be in place. We hear tragic stories of young people losing their lives or having life-changing injuries after car accidents, and normally the driver is found to be alcohol and drug-free, but I suspect that they are fired up on testosterone. Young drivers should not be allowed to carry backseat passengers, and we should investigate other restrictions to make our roads safer.

I hope the Government make rapid progress on making the driving test more rigorous and on ensuring that all drivers are prepared for many more of the situations that they find on the roads.

I was alarmed to find out recently that about 10,000 people are driving on our roads with more than 12 points on their licences, so I urge the Government to investigate that urgently and to take action. Previously, there was an effective carrot and stick: if someone built up their no claims bonus, they got cheaper car insurance; if they got endorsements or points, their insurance premium went up; and if they got three endorsements or 12 points, they lost their licence. We need to do more to ensure that good drivers can afford to drive, and I hope that the Government will take urgent and comprehensive action.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Penning)]

For colleagues who have been here throughout the debate, may I say—I know it is not my brief to do so—that my thoughts and prayers go to the family of the Red Arrows pilot who was killed this afternoon? Our servicemen do a lot for us. I say this as colleagues might not know that, sadly, this pilot died—the second fatality in the Red Arrows this year.

This afternoon’s debate has been excellent—led brilliantly by the Chair of the Transport Select Committee, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman). In general, the debate has been sensible, measured and useful to our constituents. I cannot say that about parts of the speech by the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), particularly when it became party political. That is not what this evening’s debate was about, especially considering that the previous Administration were in government for 13 years and many of the measures he now asks us to bring forward could have been introduced then. The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), a former Front-Bench Transport spokesman was much better in his tone; he never used to read out a speech that was written before and that did not contribute anything to the debate.

To answer what was probably the only sensible point that the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness raised—about continuous insurance enforcement—60% of all those written to, having been shown to be uninsured, have responded positively and were either given a statutory off-road notice or said that they would insure. About £122,000 has been picked up in fines, and 250,000 penalty notices have been issued—in excess of what we expected at this stage of the new piece of legislation.

Let us move on to the general debate, led so excellently by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside. Everyone will be pleased to know that we shall not divide the House on the motion. There is an issue about the committee that is being formed, but I will come back to that in a few moments. Many of the issues I see in my constituency correspondence have been alluded to brilliantly in this evening’s debate.

To add to the anecdotal evidence, a member of my own staff was in a road traffic accident the other evening. She was hit from behind; the person got out of the car and was very amenable. My staff member said, “How are you? Are you okay? Do you want to go through the insurance process?” The other lady said, “I’d like to pay you privately because otherwise my premiums will go through the roof.” Everything was sorted out fine; no contact was made with the insurers or the police. However, she received a text message asking “Would you like to claim for the injury that you had?” A member of the public had obviously informed those whom I described to the Committee as ambulance chasers. Apparently it is not just the insurers who are passing information around; others also think that they can secure substantial earnings from such events.

Several Members paid tribute to the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw). I thank him, in his absence, for contacting me to say that he could not be present this evening. We have worked closely for many years on many subjects when our respective parties have been in opposition and in government, and I believe that the motion has opened the Government’s eyes to the possibility of using his Bill for this purpose. There will of course be attempts to find loopholes, but it is the Government’s responsibility to ensure that any legislation is fit for purpose.

I believe that 11, if not 12, Members spoke in the debate—that does not include those who have intervened—and it will be impossible for me to respond to all the points that they raised, but I will of course write to all those whose questions I have not had time to answer.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Karl MᶜCartney) made an important point about uninsured drivers. Uninsured driving is a criminal offence, and I am sure that no Member would condone it, but given that it contributes only £30 to the average premium, there must be many other factors in the market. I see that the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) is present, and I shall comment on the position in Northern Ireland shortly, but the fact remains that that £30 is not the reason that premiums have been shooting through the roof—although we have seen some reduction in recent months.

Nevertheless, notwithstanding our concern about the size of premiums, we must in no circumstances condone uninsured driving, which plagues not only our constituents who pay their premiums but the police. Like the hon. Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward), I have been out with the local police force many times, and I am sure that anyone else who has done so will confirm that when the police pull drivers over for being uninsured, they will almost certainly pick them up for another offence which, in many cases, will have nothing to do with driving offences. People who wish to break the law in that way often wish to break it in other ways. We must help the police in every possible way to ensure that such fraud is dealt with, because driving without insurance is indeed fraudulent.

We must also help the insurers, who will doubtless be monitoring this debate and will realise that they are the pariahs: the nasty, horrible people to whom we must pay our premiums. I suppose that I should declare an interest at this stage. I have two daughters between the ages of 17 and 25, and the premium is high. I am proud to say that they have managed to work hard throughout their time at university, and that the work that they have done has helped to pay the insurance. I have not had to bear the whole burden.

The hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) mentioned the crass decision by the European Court of Justice that gender could not be taken into account by insurers deciding premiums, although, as we all know, premiums are based on risk. I find that astonishing, because the figures clearly show that, sadly, boys aged between 17 and 25 are 10 times more likely to be involved in accidents than girls of a similar age. One of the most frightening pieces of evidence that has been given to me while I have had the honour of being the Minister responsible for these matters is that the most dangerous activity in which a young lady can engage in this country is sitting next to a boy aged between 17 and 25 who is driving a car.

[Jim Dowd]

Is not the problem with the European approach the assumption that every member of a certain group will behave in a certain way? It is a generalised rather than a personalised approach. The assessment is being made not on the basis of what a particular individual who wants to buy a particular product is likely to do, but on the basis of what people in a particular category are likely to do. Even if there is no evidence against an individual, that individual will be subject to the same penalty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Penning]

I have not rejected that; this was done by a colleague in the Ministry of Justice, as it is a legal matter. However, I completely agree with my colleague, as he is a legal person and I am not. There are legal differences between Germany and this country. Everything is possible, and this Parliament can do whatever it wants to do. [Interruption.] Perhaps that is not the case—I see some of my Eurosceptic friends in the House this evening. There are certain things that I would like to be doing in my Department that Europe prevents me from doing.

As we have heard across the House today, insurers have to take responsibility and say, “No, we’ll take you to court and we will challenge this.” They should not just settle out of court because it happens to be cheaper than the possible consequences of going to court. Immediately we start to do that, the no win, no fee ambulance chasers will look very carefully at their cases, and people who should genuinely get their compensation will get it and those who are swinging a leg, as my grandfather would say, will not. I shall refer back to my time on the Select Committee on Health, because it is not just in this area that we have this problem with insurance. Our hospitals, in particular, tend to settle out of court rather than challenging claims, and that is costing the taxpayer and the NHS an absolute fortune, so this is a culture that we have to turn around.

Hon. Members have touched on other aspects in the report and the evidence to the Select Committee. I have significantly changed the driving test, the practical and the theory, since my appointment, and I intend to change it even more. I have said it before and I will say it again that people are currently taught to pass a test; they are not taught to drive. They are not taught to drive safely for themselves and for others, and we have to make sure that we have qualified driving instructors and that everybody knows they are qualified when they get into that car. One change we are going to make—I hope that the Select Committee will agree with me on this—is that someone who is not a qualified driving instructor will not be able to take someone out on their own to teach them to drive. I am not going to stop parents, grandparents and sisters doing that, but someone who gets into a car marked “driving instructor” should not have to look for a little badge on the windscreen that says that the person is a trainee. These people should be qualified driving instructors. The industry supports me on this and we will do this. There also has to be an ongoing training programme for driving instructors. Some instructors took their qualifications many years ago, and we need to make sure that they are au fait with what we want from the driving test, although we also want them to earn an income.

As we have heard today, there are also things that happen to people suddenly when they pass their driving test. Clearly, some people—young people in particular, but not all of them—appear to have some kind of lobotomy when they get behind the wheel of a car. I am talking about highly intelligent young people who are perfect role models in every other aspect of their life, and then they get behind the wheel of a car. Sadly, as has been discussed, testosterone is one of the leading factors. Drink and drugs are involved, but testosterone is one of the big problems here.

In my constituency, the place where most people pass their test is St Albans. Between my constituency and St Albans is a rather large motorway called the M1, and to get back from the test centre, people have to cross it. That means that someone could be driving for the first time on their own and as they turn left or right to come off the A414 they will be on the M1. I think we need to give people, particularly young people, the opportunity to learn how to drive on the motorway before they pass their test. That is why we will pass regulations to allow qualified driving instructors to take learners on to motorways. Can I make that compulsory? No, I cannot because some counties have no motorways, so it would be discriminatory to do so, but we will give qualified instructors the opportunity to do that.

We need to make sure that the test is not the endgame, but not—in my opinion or that of the Government—to make it compulsory to take post-test qualifications. Pass Plus was a partial success, but was never really rolled out properly.

[Jim Dowd]

Before I came to the House, I used to drive extensively on the motorway network—in my company car, for those who were listening earlier—and the idea of the odd learner turning up on the motorway is strange. Traffic on our motorways travels at much higher speeds generally. Would it not be better to allow people to pass the traditional test and then take an additional period of tuition on the motorway, rather than allow someone who might have been behind the wheel of a car for only two or three hours suddenly to turn up on a motorway alongside juggernauts and fast-driving cars? The Minister will know better than anyone that the average speed on motorways is much higher than the 70 mph limit.